Column: Beach driving kicks up debate along seashore at Cape Hatteras

Rob Morris

Before we made the Outer Banks our permanent home, spending a week or two in Buxton was a summer tradition.

Cottage Avenue became a familiar part-time neighborhood where we would see many of the same people every year: my sister and her family, the Hastingses, the local family at the end of the street and Dave.

Dave was a college music teacher who stayed in an oceanfront duplex owned by an older couple. But more important, Dave was a fisherman who had a four-wheel-drive truck. He was our connection to the Point.

In those days, some 20 years ago, knowing somebody who had an off-road vehicle was a rare vacation bonus.

You hoped that one day, you would be asked to come along. Driving onto the beach, it seemed, was reserved for people who could be trusted to respect it.

One day, Dave did invite us, and the memory still sticks with me. Seeing Cape Point for the first time is almost a religious experience. Once you get past a wide expanse of sand, there, at the tip of the East Coast, the Labrador Current and Gulf Stream meet in a stunning, white-capped collision. When we went, there were a few other fishermen. But aside from the sound of the surf, there was a quiet, almost reverent, feel to it.

We quit going to Buxton not long after the children had grown brave enough to venture into the surf and we were not brave enough to watch.

Now that we live in Nags Head, we have our own four wheel drive. But I can count how many times we’ve taken it onto the beach. To me, the beach still demands respect: You need a better reason to drive on it other than just because you can. But with SUVs being the preferred method of getting around suburbia, many people can. And there is little doubt that many people do.

That, among other things, seems to be the crux of the debate over driving on the beach at the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. In simple terms, those who want to protect the right to drive on the beach are clashing with environmentalists who believe no one has the right to threaten the lives of shorebirds and sea turtles.

The separation between the two has become huge and highly emotional. Common sense would tell you there has to be a management plan.

For Hatteras Islanders, it’s not about a lifestyle. It’s about livelihood and a way of life that goes back to the days of the light keepers maintaining the oil lamps. The lightkeepers never could have imagined the rows of houses with Suburbans, Blazers, Tahoes and Tacomas poised to head onto the sand. But this is what pays the bills today.

Environmental groups are equally adamant because protecting wildlife is what they do. And they have the money and manpower to legally filibuster for as long as it takes. Look at the Bonner Bridge replacement. The discussion has been going on for more than 10 years and recently, yet another environmental study was ordered.

Soon, the National Park Service will be presenting a draft environmental impact statement as it develops an off-road vehicle management plan. The plan was ordered during the Nixon administration but none was formally put in place. So the environmental groups stepped in legally and demanded one.

It might be a good idea if the plan includes permits; give residents and businesses something permanent at a reasonable fee and issue temporary ones to visitors. That could help fund enforcement and maybe provide some education.

If nothing else, it might make people pause and think before letting the air out of their tires and barreling onto the sand. Drive on it as long as you treat it with the respect it deserves. That seems to be a reasonable alternative to shutting the seashore down.

As for myself, I probably need to think about taking the old Blazer out to the Point one more time, just in case.

--

Source: http://outerbanksvoice.com/2010/02/28/editors-forum-2/

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites